Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Chasing the Shadows (Nikki and Michael #3) by Keri Arthur

Michael has been spending a lot of time on missions for
the Circle lately and not nearly enough time with Nikki; he misses her
terribly. And Nikki misses him – but is equally frustrated that they’re apart
because he won’t take her on missions with him. This comes to a head more and
more as Nikki rejects his constant protectiveness, his refusal to let her go
into any kind of danger and risk and his insistence that she stay at home.

Especially since she has a case – as a private detective
with Jake – that takes her into the middle of Michael’s new mission. Women have
been kidnapped only to later reappear mutilated and murdered – and vampires are
definitely involved. Michael tries to get Nikki and Jake to stay out of harm’s
way, but Nikki is ready to deal out an ultimatum on this; she will not be
cossetted and cocooned and Michael has to accept that or their whole
relationship may collapse.

The case also hits far closer to home than any of them realised

The story is pretty well done except for two big caveats.
It’s decently paced, we have a nice mix of description and action, we have a
series of slow reveals and clues that general home in on their target. It’s a
nice, decent, well written detective story with a nice balance between action
and adventure, exploration and discovery. I could have liked it because it’s a
strongly written book with some decent elements and a nicely maintained sense
of drama, tension and emotion.

Except for Nikki and Michael themselves.

One of the reasons I hate the insta-love or fastforwarded
love tropes is because, when you actually introduce conflict to their
relationship, I’m left wondering why they even bother with each other. Nikki,
as is her wont, even lampshades the whole ridiculousness of it when she points
out that all they have is good sex. This is true – so why do they have all
these massive declarations of love – why do they even consider themselves in
love when all we have ever seen of them together is arguing or having sex?

This is particularly glaring to me when Michael both spends
months away from Nikki and has completely ramped up his condescending
protective crap insisting on wrapping Nikki in cotton and putting her on the
shelf because she’s just too delicate and fragile to handle what he does and
the risks he takes.

It makes no sense. Nikki grew up on the streets in a gang, she’s a private
investigator, she’s a psychic whose powers are growing at an almost Anita-like
rate. She’s not some delicate fainting flower who may get woozy at the awful
awful violence. She’s also a thrall. His thrall. That means unless you pulp her
brain or decapitate her she’s actually immortal. He may actually be easier to
kill than her, what with his vampire vulnerabilities. The only big weakness she
has is that if he dies, she dies. So to keep her safe he decides he needs to
head into danger all alone and leave her behind?

What kind of alien non-logic is this?! Because no matter how I play it back,
all I hear is “oh you delicate flower of womanhood, rest here and loosen your
corsets – I shall send in smelling salts every 15 minutes lest the wallpaper
shock your fragile countenance!”

There’s lots of talk of compromise between the two – but where
do you compromise when one side is so completely wrong? He wants to wrap her in
cotton and make her feel fragile (and they have an added friction with her
feeling like a kept woman with him) and she wants to be treated as a full,
active partner. Where’s the compromise? Where’s the room to compromise? His insistence
that she be wrapped in bubble wrap is so complete that he won’t even take her
to their HQ to have her powers tested to see what is happening with them. For
added nausea, Michael is really condescending when arguing with her and
continually calls her childish and even throws in a “I will treat you like a
full partner when you act like one,” ooooh, really? Really? That line’s going
to stand? Because that deserves a swift kick to the yin yangs, that one.

Ultimately, the fast-forwarded relationship meant I was
left wondering why Nikki is with Michael – no matter how very sexy he is –
because sexy is his only positive; we have nothing else of him developed enough
to justify why she would tolerate his crap. Yes she constantly challenges him,
but there is still a level of him being portrayed as somewhat reasonable and
her objections are not listened to.

This is supposed to contrast against Jake and Mary’s
marital difficulties – but the comparison falls flat. Mary wants Jake to slow
down because he just had a stroke – and that following several hospital visits
for injuries (and near death) he got on the job. He’s also not nearly
invulnerable. She also presents a viable alternative. And, after years of
living where he wants to, she finally wants to move to a San Francisco – or another,
larger city. She also presents a compromise that is reasonable. The fact these
two are presented together just makes me feel the unreasonableness of Michael
isn’t really being accepted.

As an added problem this argument consumes a vast amount
of the book. It actually comes across as being extremely self absorbed – here we
have women being kidnapped, brutally tortured and killed and Nikki and Michael
continually take time out so they can have another round of the same argument.
It’s boring to read, it never develops and there’s only some vague concessions
at the end. It got in the way of the story, bored me and irritated me.

My second caveat is that there is a nasty stripe of homophobia
through this book. I’m going to delicately dance on the edge of spoiler here –
but the big bad is attacking, kidnapping, torturing and raping women because
they bullied him for being gay.

Throw in that there’s a good chance he isn’t gay because
it’s never overtly said – just endless stereotyping and deciding he has an “effeminate
voice” or once how he put down a glass in an effeminate way. How exactly do you
even do that anyway?

So, perverse, bitter gay villain who we draw the line out of actually making
unambiguously gay and then heavily garnished with some unsubtle stereotyping?
No thanks.

This awful hot mess also constituted the only representation
of anything resembling a minority. There weren’t a lot of female characters
either - except victims and the never seen witch who telepathically pokes
Michael now and then. There’s only Nikki and she’s generally embroiled in her
squabbling with Michael with odd breaks for making silly decisions purely to
spite him – and I can’t say I blame her simply because he is so smothering with
his “protectiveness” I’d be tempted to abseil down sky scrapers just to make a
point.

The next book? If we’re going to continue with Nikki and
Michael’s relationship then I want it to be an actual relationship. Not sex,
not fighting – show me something that indicates this couple is actually a
couple. Give me something to invest in this relationship, give me a reason why
Nikki tolerates him.

It’s also past time for some decent inclusion but, after
this book, I don’t have a lot of hope for that.

I’d also rather there not be another kidnapping. 3 books,
3 lots of kidnapping. Or, at least them getting to the victim in time –
honestly they don’t have a great success rate. And I’m beginning to think there
are strong elements being continued in each book (a vampire enemy, a horde of
fledglings, a kidnapping victim they have to find but won’t reach in time, some
underground explorations – 3 books, it’s getting repetitive).

Work on those 3 and the next book could be pretty decent –
but this book rather crashed and burned.